The Meeting in Warsaw

From the English.

[“New-York Daily Tribune,” No. 6072, October 10, 1860]

Berlin, September 17, 1860

Of all the countries of Europe, Germany at present offers the most curious, confused and pitiable spectacle. The real state of German affairs is best understood by a simple juxtaposition of two facts: the recent meeting of the German National Association in Coburg and the forthcoming meeting of the most eminent German princes in Warsaw. While the former strives for the unification of the fatherland by giving up German-Austria and building on Prussia, the Regent of Prussia himself, in his plans of resistance against French aggression, relies on the restoration of the Holy Alliance under Russian leadership. Russian foreign policy, as is well known, does not give a fig for principles in the ordinary sense of the word. It is neither legitimist nor revolutionary, but seizes every opportunity for territorial aggrandisement with equal skill, regardless of whether this aggrandisement is achieved by siding with insurgent peoples or with contending princes. With regard to Germany, Russia’s unvarying policy consists in changing sides. It first allies itself with France in order to break Austria’s resistance to its Oriental plans, and then takes the side of Germany in order to weaken France and to draw a bill of exchange on German gratitude which is to be discounted on the Vistula or the Danube. In the course of a European complication it will always prefer a coalition with the German princes to an alliance with the French upstarts, for the simple reason that its real strength consists in its diplomatic superiority and not in its material power. A war against Germany, its immediate neighbour, arising from an alliance with France, would expose the true impotence of the northern colossus, whereas in a war against France, owing to its geographical position, Russia would always form the reserve – Germany would thereby be compelled to do the actual work – and would claim the fruits of victory for itself. Allied powers resemble, in this respect, the different parts of an army. The vanguard and the centre must wage the decisive fight, but the reserve decides the battle and carries off the victory. German dreamers may indulge the delusive hope that Russia, under the heavy pressure of an internal social struggle through the emancipation movement, will this time give the lie to the maxim of the Russian historian Karamsin about the immutability of Russia’s foreign policy.

It is assumed that a vast empire torn by class struggle and threatened by a financial crisis would only too gladly keep its hands off Europe; but that would be to misunderstand the true character of the internal movement of Russia. Whatever his real intentions may have been – it is as impossible for a well-meaning tsar to combine the abolition of serfdom with the continuation of his own autocracy as it was for a well-meaning pope in 1848 to reconcile Italian unity with the vital conditions of the papacy. Simple as the phrase about the emancipation of the serfs in Russia sounds, the most diverse intentions and the most contradictory aspirations lie hidden behind it. The veil which, at the beginning of the movement, was thrown over the conflicting efforts by a kind of general enthusiasm, must necessarily be torn to pieces as soon as the step from word to deed is taken. Emancipation of the serfs in the sense of the tsar would amount to the destruction of the last barriers still hindering tsarist autocracy. On the one hand, the relative independence of the nobility, which rested on their uncontrolled power over the majority of the Russian people, would thereby be removed; on the other hand, the self-government of the village communities of the serfs, which rests on the communal possession of enslaved land, would be broken by the government’s plan, which aimed at the abolition of the “communist” principle. That was what the central government pictured to itself under the emancipation of the serfs. The nobles for their part – that is to say, that influential part of the Russian aristocracy which had given up the hope of maintaining the old condition – had resolved to permit the emancipation of the serfs on two conditions: financial compensation, by which they would transform the peasants from their serfs into their mortgage debtors, so that, as far as material interests are concerned, nothing would be changed for at least two or three generations except the form of serf dependence; for its patriarchal form would then have been replaced by its civilised form. Besides this compensation to be paid by the serfs, they also demanded a compensation to be paid by the state. For the local power over the serfs, which they declared themselves ready to give up, they demanded in return political power, which was to be wrested from the central government and granted to them essentially as a constitutional share in the general government of the empire.

Finally, the serfs themselves preferred the simplest formula for the emancipation question. What they understood by it was the old condition without their old landowners. In this mutual struggle – in which the government, despite threats and cajolery, failed on account of the resistance of the nobility and the peasants, the aristocracy on account of the resistance of the government and its human labouring cattle, and the peasantry on account of the joint resistance of their central master and their local masters – an agreement was arrived at, as is customary in such transactions, between the existing powers at the expense of the oppressed class. The government and the aristocracy agreed to shelve the emancipation question for the time being and to embark once more on foreign adventures. Hence the secret treaty of 1859 with Louis Bonaparte and the official congress of 1860 in Warsaw with the German princes. The Italian war had sufficiently broken Austria’s self-confidence to transform it from an obstacle into an instrument of Russia’s foreign policy plans, and Prussia, which had made itself ridiculous by displaying, in the course of the war, simultaneously the air of ambitious faithlessness and of complete inactivity, cannot help, now that it is threatened by France on its Rhenish frontiers, following in Austria’s footsteps. It was one of the great errors of the Gotha Party to imagine that the blows which Austria would probably receive from France were bound to dissolve it into its constituent parts, so that German-Austria, severed from its ties to Italy, Poland and Hungary, would easily join a great German Reich. A long historical experience has shown us that every war which Austria wages with France or Russia does not free Germany from her burden, but subjects her to the plans of France or Russia. It would be bad policy for these powers to split Austria into its individual parts with one great blow, if they possessed the strength for such a blow; but to weaken Austria in order to use its remaining influence to their own advantage was, and must always be, the main object of their diplomatic and military operations. Only a German revolution, with one centre in Vienna and another in Berlin, could shatter the Habsburg Empire to pieces, without endangering the integrity of Germany and without bringing its non-German territories under French or Russian control.

The forthcoming Warsaw Congress would greatly strengthen Louis Bonaparte’s position in France, if the prospect of a conflict in Italy between the really national party and the French party were not to spoil his chances. As things stand now, one must hope that the Warsaw Congress will at last open Germany’s eyes and show her that, in order to resist encroachments from without and to realise unity and freedom at home, she must rid herself of her dynastic masters in her own house.